life in the eyes of the tall scottish lassie

Tag Archives: thoughts

Carrying on from my last batch of Bucket List fillers, I’ve returned to squeezing in more :). Today’s batch is a mixture of travel, but mostly what I want to get from my little life in terms of the inevitable “growing up” if you will. Some might think it’s a little dull… but thats why it’s my Bucket List – not yours!

If you have any more suggestions to add to this ever growing Bucket, feel free to add your ideas :).

41. Smother myself in mud at the Sabeto Mud Baths in Fiji.

My mate posted photos on Facebook on this place and it looked amazing and SO much fun!

42. Go to a fashion show catwalk.

Not like one I went to at college… surprisingly I studied Fashion at college – you’d never guess! But a real top designer catwalk would be amazing to be part of!

43. Win more than £10 in the lottery or a scratch card.

I was given a scratch card as part of a Christmas present (brilliant idea might I add!) and won 20 smakaroonies!

44. Wine more than £50 in the lottery or scratch card.

Well I managed no.43… I can only hope!

45. Go on the Sex And The City tour in New York City.

If you know me at all, you will know that I love SATC. I want to be one of those geeks on the bus… oh yes… and stopping off at Magnolia Bakery just so I can have one of those cupcakes like Carrie and Miranda. Yup… I’m that geek!

46. Sell a painting for more than £100

One day… perhaps. The most I have made from a painting has been £30 so far… Here’s hoping!

47. Travel 100% solo… and get out alive.

I’m currently planning it… Perhaps someone will join me along the way, but for now it’s solo all the way :). I’m a little scared I’ll admit!

48. Discover if soul mates truly exist.

If they do… perhaps I’ll find mine. I’ll keep you noted if such a thing crops up in my life :).

49. Get onto the property ladder.

Yes, a little boring you might say, but I would love to own my own place one day. Whether that’s by myself or with my future other half, who knows?! Plus I love decorating and interior design of all kinds, and doing that with my own place would be amazing :).

50. Visit Machu Picchu In Peru.

I’ve researched into South America quite a lot, and this place takes my breath away… and I haven’t even got there! I know it’ll happen one day :).

That was the question that entered my mind just the other day – Am I running away?

Your probably thinking what? What are you running away from?

A big hairy spider?

A looming deadline?

Writing another blog post?

Nope. None of them unfortunately. The question that, out of the blue for no reason what so ever, begged the answer was –

Am I running away from real life?

Again, you’re probably thinking… what do you mean by real life? Kerri, you are talking gibberish – again. (Fear not, I do the gibberish thing a lot, but this time I actually have a point!)

What I mean by real life is the whole career thing, finding myself another half to spend the rest of my life with, stepping into the scary world of mortgages, having a family. Basically – settling down.

Ok, yes, I am only 24, I admit that isn’t old. However, I have never ever known what to do with my life asides from travel. My mum always knew she wanted to be a nurse, and hey presto, she became a nurse. It wasn’t easy for her, but she got there. But at least she had that dream to be something.

It wasn’t till my previous relationship ended back in 2008, that the urge to travel suddenly came around. I dropped out of uni – a major decision to make – saved for a year and just flew off. A year later, I came home and had everything set –my new boyfriend, travel plans, plans for coming home and where to live. Everything was sorted.

But then that was taken away as well. And now here I am planning my travels – solo – and heading off round the world again, and still no clue what to do apart from that.

And it makes me wonder. If I do simply travel – yes it’ll be amazing – but if I come home still single, still no idea what to do with my career, still nowhere near getting onto the property ladder, let alone moving away from my parent’s home. What will I do? I’ll just be back to where I am now even closer to the big 30… a little wiser perhaps from the travel. But what will I do after?

I’m sure my parents would be thrilled if I simply tell them I plan to travel every few years and come home to scrounge and live off them! At some point I’m going to have to settle somewhere and find myself a job and save for that dreaded mortgage and be a big girl.

But am I running away from starting that now? Of course I want to travel, if that’s my only dream right now, why hold it off for another dream I might not find at home? I hoped that when I travelled Oz, I’d find my niche in life, apart from my creative artistic flare returning, I didn’t find anything. Was I hoping for too much?

For now, I know I’m not ready to get into the world of mortgages or rent, or start a family anytime soon, I know travelling is what I want to do.

I’ve always known life is full of surprises. Just when you think you have most of it figured out, something is dropped in the ocean and creates a whole new wave of direction.

This past few weeks has proved massively changing in the life of Kerri (thats me!). My plans that I had been set on for so long were suddenly thrown off course when my relationship ended with the curly boy. And although part of me wishes it didn’t have to end so suddenly, the other half of me is realising this is perhaps what I needed – change.

A long distance relationship was something I always knew would be hard. But I tell you this now… imagine how hard it would be and times that by 100! It has to be the most difficult thing I have ever done – send me to the other side of the world anytime (!) – and I’m certainly in no rush to do long distance again! Asides from the obvious missing one another, it made me realise something, something I didn’t like. I was changing – but not in a good way.

Not a day went by without me worrying over something. No matter how small it may have been, I would worry about it. And worse still, I could feel my insecurities growing about myself. I didn’t feel as confident about myself anymore, and the stress was killing me. I tried so hard to be positive; telling myself we’ve got this far we can keep going, thinking of our travels together, knowing it would’nt always be this difficult… but nothing would work.

So when ‘we’ were over, and I know this makes me seem insensitive, but I felt something was lifted off my shoulders. Now I could think about me, and only me. When I’m in a relationship, I always think of the other person, or us. But for once I could now be selfish. And I’ve felt more than ever that now I’m looking on things in a much more positive way. And I couldn’t love that more.

Even though my travel plans have made a complete U-turn, and I’m scared of travelling alone with my lack of confidence, I’m still pushing myself to be positive. I want to do this for me. I want to get out there and push myself to speak to fellow travellers and explore the world to the max. I need to do this. If anything, I think this is why this happened… Someone out there is telling me I need that kick up the backside to be a more positive confident girl!

Sometimes change can be a petrifying thing. Hell, I am petrified! I can’t wait to travel, and I’m so excited for everything I’m going to see/hear/taste, but there is a huge element of fear deep inside shouting at me “What the hell are you doing woman?!”

I just know that this change is all for the best. For me, and for him.

And so… my new travel plans will commence, and the change in me is already building. In a cheesy sort of way (a nice cheese… none of that parmesan crap!) , I can see myself being someone I can live with! After all, if I don’t like who I am, how do I expect someone else to like me?! So stay tuned… my blog will come back to life again… with my travel plans being explored, tickets being booked, blog concepts coming to life and this little lady finding herself once again :).

Has anyone else had a sudden change in their life and found the positive side to it? I’d love to hear some stories :).

Two years ago to this very day I was climbing upon a plane at around 5pm tonight ready to start my year in Australia.

I had been counting down to this very point for exactly 247 days since I booked the ticket with Air Asia. I couldn’t be more excited! I was nervous, apprehensive, petrified all at once. The counting down seemed to last a lifetime, yet here I was taking those last few steps on the plane that would take me away from home for 366 days.

I just arrived in Edinburgh after a few hours journey on the bus from my home town of Aberdeen. I had been here before many years ago, but only a few memories had stuck of where things were, so it was all new to me once again…